The Tony Awards Get Dressed Up

A little after 5 p.m. on Thursday afternoon, Beth Malone stood in the Manhattan offices of the fashion public relations company KCD trying not to appear out of place. It was a losing battle.

Ms. Malone — who stars in “Fun Home” and is nominated for best actress in a musical — wasn’t sure whether the diamond-studded earrings from Jemma Wynne were supposed to angle upward or downward. Also, she was less than confident she had figured out how to stand in her black-and-white sleeveless J. Mendel dress with the slit down the middle.

“Leg out,” said Nate Hinton, a publicity director at the agency, which represents designer brands like Marc Jacobs and Givenchy, and who was helping to outfit her. “The leg is everything.”

“No way,” said Ms. Malone, not so much defiant as she was amazed at the suggestion. “Who’s that celebrity who did that?”

“Angelina Jolie,” someone nearby offered.

“Yes,” Ms. Malone said. “She looked like an idiot.”

“No, she didn’t,” said Ms. Malone’s publicist, Molly Barnett.

Ms. Malone remained unconvinced. For one thing, she’s a self-described cargo-pant-wearing lesbian, the sort who can barely remember the last time she had on heels. For another, she’s an actress working in a field in which borrowed clothes (and playing dress up) remain unusual.

Last year, Audra McDonald won her sixth Tony Award — a feat no other actor had accomplished — starring in the play “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill” — but she accepted the award wearing Escada, a brand not exactly known as fashion trendsetter. Jessie Mueller, who won for her role in the musical “Beautiful,” was outfitted by a little-known bridal designer named Randi Rahm.

At the Oscars, the most memorable fashion moments have generally involved entertainers like Cher and Björk going as over the top as possible. At the Tonys, no outfit in recent memory was more commented upon than Frances McDormand’s; in 2011, she accepted the award for best actress in a play wearing a Levi’s jean jacket.

But this year, change appears to be afoot.

The red carpet on West 50th Street outside Radio City Music Hall has been widened considerably to accommodate more people. In another first, a preshow will be live-streamed on CBS.com and Tonyawards.comon Sunday night, with Darren Criss as a co-host and focused largely on the fashion choices of nominees and presenters. Design houses like Michael Kors, Vera Wang, Marc Jacobs, Zac Posen and Oscar de la Renta have all lent clothes or offered their services, or both, free of charge.

How did all this happen? It was a group effort led by William Ivey Long, the much-awarded costume designer and head of the American Theater Wing (which hosts the Tonys), KCD and Anna Wintour, who happens to be a passionate theatergoer, the sort who is a fixture at both big commercial openings (“Something Rotten,” “It’s Only a Play,”) and more experimental productions Off Broadway (“Red Velvet” at St. Ann’s Warehouse).

Growing up in Britain, where her father, Charles, was the editor of The London Evening Standard, Ms. Wintour could often be found at the theater. “I remember going to the National and seeing early productions of ‘Jumpers,’ ” she said in a telephone interview. “And also going to Stratford when they would put on wonderful Shakespeare productions.”

Since becoming editor of Vogue in 1988, Ms. Wintour has often featured Broadway stars in its pages. Theater publicists say it is not unusual for Ms. Wintour to call them as far as a year in advance of a production’s debut to inquire about an actor appearing in it. Friends of Ms. Wintour, like the theater producer Jordan Roth, say they often hear of things for the first time when she emails to say there’s something new they just have to see.

“She is a true devotee of the form,” he said.

Last year, Mr. Long and Mr. Roth became convinced that the Tony Awards needed to up its game and that she was only the person to help.

The first thing she did in June was attend the Tonys ceremony with Mr. Long, sitting in the second row with her trademark sunglasses. Afterward, the two did a post-mortem about what was wrong, although Mr. Long is cagey about just what was said.

“I have a clouded memory,” he said. “Not that the meetings took place over drinks, but they happened more than a year ago. I can’t be held responsible for my brain. Suffice it to say we had work to do.”

Ms. Wintour said, “There are designers that love the theater and go to the theater and have huge respect for it, but I’m not sure that they’ve had such a connection with the theater world itself, so we were just very, very happy to facilitate and help out in a small way.”

One thing Ms. Wintour suggested was bringing in Ed Filipowski, who in addition to being the president of KCD had recently invested in a string of plays like “Mothers and Sons” and “It’s Only a Play.”

He committed to help lead the effort to get each nominee in the acting categories free designer clothes. KCD also suggested that the arrival times for the nominees and presenters be staggered, leading to less clutter and more organization on the red carpet.

A few weeks ago, calls went out to nominees saying that Vogue and KCD would be happy to help dress them. This led to reports in The New York Post that the fashion police were taking over the Tonys, with Ms. Wintour lording as “precinct captain” over a heap of newly “on edge” nominees.

But that wasn’t exactly the impression a reporter got last week upon running into Sarah Stiles, who is nominated as best featured actress for her role in the play “Hand to God.”

“I got a call from my press agent saying, ‘Anna Wintour would like to dress you,’ ” Ms. Stiles said. “I said, ‘Is this a prank call because that is like the greatest thing I have ever heard in my life.’ ”

By late in the week, she had settled on a red off-the-shoulder J. Mendel.